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Contents lists

T. E. Lawrence to R. V. Buxton

Clouds Hill
Moreton
Dorset

13.XII.23

Dear Robin,

This is to report what we did
the other Sunday: Hogarth, Curtis, Dawnay and me. Decided to begin straight
away. To print 100 copies at 30 guineas, and a matter of twenty incomplete
copies to be given away by myself free to protagonists of the campaign.

Myself, a man of straw, to be
solely responsible for the printing, production, and distribution of the book.
This because it must inevitably be libellous. Civil Libel Actions break down
because I have no money: criminal, because prison wouldn't seem to me worse than
the Tank Corps.

ProcedureHogarth, Curtis (and I hope especially yourself) will tell their friends
that the book is coming, in about a year's time, and that if they want a copy
they must write to me.

I'll reply explaining the
conditions of subscription:

They will, (if so minded) pay
in a cheque. Will you decide the technicalities of this payment? I mean, in what
name it should be (if, as I expect it should be a special account), and how and
in what name I draw upon it.

I'm writing to a private printer, to ask him for a scheme and
estimate. It is my intention that the production shall contravene the copyright
act (in that no printers' name shall appear on the finished copies) and probably
I'll take a £10 share in the firm to create the fiction that the printing is
done by myself.

I propose to send the first block of four
drawings to Whittingham & Griggs, the colour-printers, so soon as the paid
subscriptions amount to £200, the necessary cover.

I think this is all that is necessary to say.
The text will be revised, but the sole criterion of the revision will be
literary fitness: I propose no improvement in morals or decency: and it will be
very little (not more than 10% probably) shorter.

Will you see if you can
contribute towards the list of subscribers? and advise upon the banking account
which must grow up (and down)?

I propose, in my letter of
conditions to each subscriber, to explain that my proposed edition of 100 copies
is based on the estimate of £3000 for the cost of production, with a 10% margin
for eventualities: but that if the book costs less I'll distribute fewer than
100 copies: and if more as many more as are required to meet the bill: the price
always remaining 30 guineas, and the total proceeds always equalling the total
cost.

I hope you'll be satisfied with this decision.
My determination to take the sole charge is that I may carry the sole
responsibility. It's well to profit in some way by being a soldier!

Hogarth will literary-edit
the proofs for me: and Kennington art-edit the blocks.

T.E.

New address: to supersede all
others. Any name: mine being the only house on the hill. Clouds Hill, Moreton,
Dorset.

Source:

DG 442-3

Checked:

jw/

Last revised:

28 January 2006

T. E. Lawrence chronology

﻿

1888 16 August: born
at Tremadoc, Wales

1896-1907: City of Oxford High School for Boys

1907-9: Jesus College, Oxford, B.A., 1st Class Hons, 1909

1910-14: Magdalen College, Oxford (Senior Demy), while working at the British
Museum's excavations at Carchemish

1915-16: Military Intelligence Dept, Cairo

1916-18: Liaison Officer with the Arab Revolt

1919: Attended the Paris Peace Conference

1919-22: wrote Seven Pillars of Wisdom

1921-2: Adviser on Arab Affairs to Winston Churchill at the Colonial Office

1922 August: Enlisted in the Ranks of the RAF

1923 January: discharged from the RAF

1923 March: enlisted in the Tank Corps

1923: translated a French novel, The Forest Giant

1924-6: prepared the subscribers' abridgement of Seven Pillars of Wisdom

1927-8: stationed at Karachi, then Miranshah

1927 March: Revolt in the Desert, an abridgement of Seven
Pillars, published

1928: completed The Mint, began translating Homer's Odyssey

1929-33: stationed at Plymouth

1931: started working on RAF boats

1932: his translation of the Odyssey published

1933-5: attached to MAEE, Felixstowe

1935 February: retired from the RAF

1935 19 May: died from injuries received in a motor-cycle crash on 13 May

1935 21 May: buried at Moreton, Dorset

﻿

This T. E. Lawrence Studies website is edited and maintained by
Jeremy Wilson. Its content draws on the research archive
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